The MEV Letter is a weekly collection of papers, articles and resources related to MEV. The intention of this letter is to provide a comprehensive summary of the latest research, discussions, and developments in the space, with links for further reading.
Papers & Articles
- Silent Threshold Encryption with One-Shot Adaptive Security by Mathias Hall-Andersen, @mark, and Benedikt Wagner presents a blueprint for constructing silent threshold encryption schemes which remain secure as long as the number of corruptions is at most t ≤ (1/2 - ε) · n, where ε > 0 is an arbitrary constant.
- The Free Option Problem in ePBS, Part II by @Christoph, Fei Wu, @BrunoMr, and @boz1 tests the theoretical predictions made in The Free Option Problem in ePBS empirically by checking whether the option would have been profitable to exercise on realized blocks.
- Protocol Update 001 – Scale L1 by Ansgar Dietrichs, Tim Beiko, and Marius van der Wijden summarizes progress from the Protocol workstream focused on Scaling L1, highlighting the gas limit increase to 45M, pre-merge history expiry, BALs research, and appointing Marius van der Wijden as workstream co-lead.
- lean Ethereum by Justin Drake presents lean Ethereum as a 10-year vision to reach 10k TPS on L1 and 10M TPS on L2, with a reimagination of the CL and EL using real-time zkVMs and post-quantum blobs.
- Post by Justin Drake
- Angstrom v1 Whitepaper by Karthik Srinivasan, Ludwig Thouvenin, and Ciamac C. Moallemi presents the dual-auction structure of Angstrom with a top-of-block auction and a uniform-clearing batch auction, implemented as a Uniswap v4 hook.
- Maintaining Effective Blob Fee Markets During Network Scaling: Dual-Variable EIP-1559 by Arthur Hsiao introduces a dual-variable resource pricing mechanism as an extension of EIP-1559 to dynamically adjust both the
base_fee_per_blob_gasandtarget_blob_gas_per_blockin response to real-world demand fluctuations. - Overclocking Blocks with Gas Refunds by Toni Wahrstätter details how block gas accounting is distorted by storage-clearing refunds in EIP-3529, and how EIP-7778 ensures that block gas usage accurately reflects actual resource consumption.
- LMD GHOST with ~256 validators and a fast-following finality gadget by Vitalik Buterin outlines a design to reduce the slot time by separating the fork choice rule and finality gadget, thus reducing the number of network latency rounds per slot.
- The Complexity of FOCIL for the EL by Jihoon Song covers the changes that FOCIL would introduce to the EL, and examines the compatibility between FOCIL and BALs.
- Post by Jihoon Song
- What is ePBS? by smstack.eth outlines the rationale, technical details, and ongoing discourse related to implementing ePBS in Glamsterdam.
- 5 Things That Break in Private DeFi (DarkFi) by Krzysztof Gogol identifies 5 key challenges that private DeFi (DarkFi) needs to address to support the rich functionality of today’s DeFi.
- Real and virtual reserves in Uniswap v3 by RareSkills explains the distinction between real and virtual reserves in Uniswap v3’s liquidity model.
- Post by RareSkills
- A Heavily Biased Oral History of OEV by Campbell traces the evolution of oracles in DeFi from push feeds to OEV-capture, and outlines the design of RedStone Atom.
Posts & Threads
- @ryager published a thread highlighting 1 item from each edition of The MEV Letter as a way to celebrate the upcoming #100 edition.
- Zach Rynes published a post detailing how Chainlink SVR, integrated into BuilderNet, refunded a user $100K of liquidation MEV in a single transaction.
- Aya Miyaguchi published a thread celebrating Ethereum’s first 10 years by highlighting important milestones, events, and community initiatives.
- Hsiao-Wei Wang published a thread reflecting on Ethereum’s first 10 years of network- and community growth, and ongoing efforts to scale further without compromising on decentralization, inclusivity, or permissionless participation.
- ladislaus.eth published a thread sharing publications and collaborations by EF Research from the previous week.
- Potuz published a thread rejecting the idea that trusted relays are better than builders at guaranteeing that the payload is delivered to the validator.
Talks & Discussions
- Pragma Cannes: Why You Should Be Optimistic About MEV by @shea presents an optimistic view of MEV’s future by focusing on TEE block building as a critical component of a more decentralized and efficient Ethereum stack.
- Bankless: Angstrom: The Future of Decentralized Exchange invites Ludwig Thouvenin and @Hasu to discuss Angstrom approach to mitigating MEV for swappers and LPs on Uniswap v4 with a dual-auction architecture.
- AllCoreDevs - Execution (ACDE) #217 hosted by Tim Beiko discussed updates from fusaka-devnet-3, and opinions on Glamsterdam headliners.
- 10 Years of Ethereum Livestream hosted by Songyi Lee and Austin Griffith invites Tim Beiko, Vitalik Buterin, Joseph Lubin, Tomasz K. Stańczak, Hsiao-Wei Wang and builders from around the world, to celebrate 10 years of Ethereum by revisiting its history and envisioning the next decade.
- Glamsterdam Community Call #01 hosted by Christine D. Kim invites Ben Adams, parithosh, smartprogrammer.eth, jasperthefriendlyghost.eth, and RazorClient to discuss Fusaka, Glamsterdam headliners, and more.
Other
- Geographic Decentralization Salon @ SBC '25 hosted by Flashbots highlighted streams of ongoing work on how protocols can be designed to facilitate, or at least preserve, geographic decentralisation over time.
- NoConsensus.wtf 2025 @ SBC hosted by Flashbots and Pod Network brought together researchers and engineers to discuss censorship-resistance, scalability, and anonymity in blockchain P2P layers.
- 2025 Staking Survey Results by EthStaker presents results from a survey targeting staking node operators on their sentiments, motivations, and opinions.
- Sunnyside Devnet Updates - 08/04 by Test in Prod (Sunnyside Labs) presents results from devnets using the fusaka-devnet-2 spec which reached 60 blobs per block under 22M gas usage.
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